Very true. As I recall that was very much a time of transition in politics, but it took a long time (too long) for many in the GOP to realize that people like Tip O’Neal and Ted Kennedy, among many other Democrats, were engaged in raw political warfare.
Just as the Democrats once had a conservative wing as wel as a liberal wing, so the Repbulicans once had an explicitly liberal wing as well as a conservative one. I doubt that those in the liberal wing, who now style themselves as moderates, or moderate conservatives, ever really had a problem with the agenda of the Democratic liberal wing.
Historically, the Republicans were the more liberal party up through the new deal, and only with Nixon does the liberal wing of the Pubs seem to be in a definite second place. With an emphasis on the word “seem.”